Alkylphenol ethoxylates (APE's) and their anionic derivatives are surfactants that are well known to industry and have historically been relied upon heavily by agricultural chemical producers. However, formulations containing APEs do not always provide the most desirable combination of design specifications, e.g. product efficacy, working parameters and cost. Traditional non-APE surfactant systems have not been readily adaptable substitutes for APE surfactants. For example, depending on the formulation requirements, calcium dodecylbenzenesulfonate used in conjunction with fatty acid ethoxylates has proven to be an unacceptable APE substitute because of poor performance within one or more design parameters such as emulsion stability, acute toxicity, temporal and thermal stability, chemical and physical stability; solution, suspension or dilution dynamics, and viscosity and suspension stabilization. The inability of industry to adapt existing technology to improve upon characteristics of surfactant systems containing APEs has prompted the development of entirely new line APE surfactants. The additional challenge faced by the scientific community has been to develop new APE surfactants which can be easily made from readily available and cost effective raw materials. Accordingly, there continues to be a need for improved APE surfactants.